What I read to you is the thirty-second
chapter. Now, let me read some in chapter
thirty-three of the book of Job. Chapter thirty-three. Talk about the patience of Job. Well, he had some patience, but
not as much as he ought to have had. He found out some things that
he didn't know. Verse one of chapter thirty-three, Wherefore, Job, I pray thee,
hear my speeches, and hearken unto my words. Behold, now I
have opened my mouth, and my tongue hath spoken in my mouth. uprightness of my heart, and
my lips shall utter knowledge clearly. The Spirit of God hath
made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. If thou canst answer me, set
thy words in order before me, and stand up. Behold, I am according to thy
wish in God's stead. You know, Job had before said
he wished that he had someone that would go between him and
God. He would have a daisman from
on high that would stand between him and God. And so Elihu here
says, Behold, I am according to thy wish in God's stead. But he said, I also am formed
out of the clay. And behold, my terror shall not
make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee. Surely thou hast spoken in mine
hearing, I have heard the voice of thy words saying, and this
is what Job said, I am clean without transgression. He said,
I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me. Now, this is
what Job said. And Elio said, I am a witness
to what you have said. Behold, Job said, he findeth
occasions against me. And he said, he counteth me for
his enemy. He was referring to God. The dealings of God towards Job
were because God didn't like him, and God hated him, and he
was an enemy of God. He said, he putteth my feet in
the stalks, and marketh all my paths. And he said, Behold, in thee
thou art not just to say these things in reference to God. I will answer thee that God is
greater than man. Why dost thou strive against
him? For he giveth not account of
any of his matters, For God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth
it not, in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep
falleth upon men, and slumberings upon the bed. Then he openeth
the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may
withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keepeth
back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the
sword. He is chastened also with pain
upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain,
so that his life of whoreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away that
it cannot be seen, and his bones that were not seen stick out." quit reading right there for
a while. This is kind of the scriptures that I
want to refer to, those that I've read. Now, we know from
the outset here that Job's three friends who complained of Job's
bad behavior, and tried to convince Job that there was some secret
sin or sins in the life of Job that resulted in some bad behavior. Therefore, God was punishing
him because of his behavior. Elihu here, who said that he didn't accept any man's person,
neither gave flattering titles unto men, but he said he was
full of matter, full of the Spirit of God, and he's just bubbling
over here to make known what he believes is God's truth and
the reason why God has thus dealt with Job in this manner. And he's implying that Job's
three friends, in all of their conversation, which must have
lasted for hours and hours and hours, for there's about twenty-five
or thirty chapters of this accusation of his three friends towards
Job. So evidently this young man who's
doing the speaking here in this thirty-second chapter felt like
that the three friends of Job had no grace or no truth. in their ministry. And the result
was, because of no grace, no love, and no proof, the result
was they failed to convince Job, and they condemned him without
convincing him. So there's a problem there, that
when you condemn somebody without convincing him of his wrong,
There's a problem. They should have been able to
convince him and then made him condemn himself. But that was
not the subject with these three men. They failed to convince
Job. They condemned him without convincing
him whereas they should have convinced him and made him condemn
himself. Now this fellow in chapter 32,
this young man, he knew how by the grace of God
to lean upon God. He tells Job and his friends
that he does not know how to give. flattering titles to men,
and from this I gather he has the voice of truth. And the voice
of truth comes to the ear of Job with clearness. Truth puts every man in his right
place. The truth of who God is. and
the truth of what God is like puts men in his right place. And just because it does so,
this young man says that he cannot bestow titles of flattery upon
a poor, guilty, mortal man. Man must be brought to know himself. and see his true condition before
God and confess what he really is. And this is precisely what
Job needed. He needed to know himself and
he needed to see himself as he was in the presence of God and
be able to confess that he was hopeless and helpless in himself
and full of pride. He needed to find that out. Now, Job did not know himself
and his friends could not give him that knowledge. Job needed
to know who he was. He needed to know himself. He's like all of Adam's fallen
race, their greatest need is to know who they are. And if
they ever find out who they are, they'll find out who God is. Now, Job needed to know himself,
and his three friends could not solve his problem. They could
not give him the answer. They could not give him them
knowledge. He needed self-judgment as every
man, woman, boy, and girl of Adam's fallen race needs this
morning. They need self-judgment to judge
themselves, to find out who they are. So Job needed self-judgment,
and his three friends were not able to produce that self-judgment
in Job. So this young man begins to tell
Job the truth, and he brings God into the scene. God enters in now where he had
not entered in before. He introduces God into the scene
in his true character as to who he really is. This young man
knew some things that Job didn't know, and he knew a whole lot
of things that Job's three friends did not know. He knew somewhat
of the true character of God. Now this is just exactly what
his three fair friends did not do, and they did not do it because
they did not know the character of God. They at times referred
to God, but in their references was hazy and cloudy and not clear. They had utterly failed to bring
God before the soul of their so-called dear friend Job. They
failed in producing a self-judgment in Job. In all of their In all
of their talk and their long speeches, it did not bring Job
to see himself, but it just created an attitude of self-pride and
self-righteousness in Job, and made Job mad, and Job got mad
at God, and Job got mad at his three friends. But there was
no self-judgment there. There was no smiting of Job's
conscience. There was no realization of what
he really was in himself. So they failed to produce in
Job self-judgment. But not so with this young man
who enters into the scene, who had sat long, long and still
and listened to the accusations the men made concerning Job. And he listened to Job's response,
trying to bring about a rebuttal of what these fellows were saying
about him, his bad behavior and so forth. Well, this young man
brings in the light of truth. And when the light of truth shines
in to a man's soul and to his mind and to his intelligence
and to his conscience, then that begins to weigh heavy upon his
conscience when he sees and finds out who he really is. In chapter
33 here and verses 1 to 9, which I have read to you, where he
said, My words shall be of uprightness of my heart, and my lips shall
utter knowledge clearly, the man says to Job. And he says,
The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty
hath given me life. He said, Job, if you can answer
me, set thy words in order before me, and stand up. Behold, I am
according to thy wish and God's stead. I'm just a man formed
out of clay and so forth. I have heard you say, Job, with
my own ears. I have heard the voice of thy
words. You said I am clean without transgression. I am innocent, neither is there
any iniquity in me. No self-judgment. There's no
self-judgment because things that you say concerning yourself
are not true. And he goes on down and he said,
Behold, in this thou art not just, Job, but I will answer
thee, God is greater than man. Now, that is just a simple truth,
but very few people know it. That is a simple truth that only
has about five words. God is greater than man. And there's not many men, women,
boys and girls on the face of the earth that knows this truth.
If they know this truth, they don't act like it or they don't
live like it. They're not obedient to this
truth. God is greater than man. Nothing
is too hard for God. God cannot lie. God is without end and is without
beginning. God is almighty and God is greater
than puny man who is made and formed out of the dust of the
earth and is appointed unto man once to die and then to judgment. God is greater than man. Well, that's exactly what old
Job needs to know. He brings the light of truth into the mind and the soul and
the intelligence of old Job. All this, he said, Elihu, in
contrast to what Job's three friends have said. They were
severe and harsh in their judgment and in their accusations. Job. They insinuated that Job had
done some wrong thing by way of bad behavior in his life and
God was cursing him, God was judging him for this and that
was not the case. They were severe judges. They
fixed their cold, gray eyes upon the wounds of this poor, afflicted,
mortal man, and they looked at the crumbling of his ruined house. All of his children had died
in the flash of a second, died miraculously, all of them. His wife looked upon him and
said, curse God and die. And these three friends interpreted
that to mean that there was some rotten, there was some rottenness,
some bad behavior in old Job, and God was punishing him because
of it. So that's the reason they looked
at the crumbling ruins of his house, and in their judgment
they believed that the result was the bad behavior of old Job. This young preacher, in contrast
to what they had said, tells Job the truth, but he lays No
heavy hand upon Job like these three friends laid heavy hands
upon him. In verses 8 and 9, he said, I'll
read again, he said, I heard the voice of thy word saying,
Job, this is what you said, I am clean without transgression,
I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me. Job insists that
he was clean, innocent, free from iniquity. Yet he says of
God, he counts me for his enemy. He putteth my feet in the stalks. He maketh my paths a hard place,
a hard path. Now, God being holy and just
and righteous, he will not He will not count a pure, innocent
man like Job, his enemy, if Job was pure and innocent and without
fault. God would certainly not be unjust
to a pure, innocent man. Now, either Job was self-deceived
or God was unrighteous in this matter. And here, this young
man is very quick to tell Job, he said, Behold, in this you're
not just, Job, in saying God is your enemy. He said, I'll
answer you. And the answer is this, Job,
God is greater than man. That's the answer. And I said
a while ago that that was a simple, plain truth. But yet how little
understood is that truth, that God is greater than man. Now,
if God is greater than man, then God and not man must be the judge
of what is right and what is wrong. Man, in his infidel foolishness,
pronounces judgment on what is and what is not worthy of God. Now, to decide upon what God
ought and what He ought not to say and to do certainly gives
credence that God is greater than man. Man is a fool. He's foolish in his thoughts. and he's foolish in his ways
and he cannot render no sound judgment as to who God is and
what God ought to do and what God ought not to do. Now, the real secret of Job's
false reasoning is to be found in the fact that he did not understand
the character of God or the object of God's dealing with it. That
was his problem. He didn't understand the character
of God, and most men and women alive today do not understand
the character of God. They think that God is unwise. They think that God does not
have power, to change things. They think that God is unwise
in his dealings with men. They just believe that men are
greater than God. Now, this reasoning of Job and his Job did not see
that God was trying him. He did not understand that in
the mind, will, and purpose of God, that God tries the righteous. God tries the righteous. Job
did not understand that, neither did Job's three friends. Job did not understand that God
was trying him. He did not understand that God
was behind the scenes and that God was using various agents
for the accomplishment of his good, wise, and gracious purpose
in trying Job. Now, even the devil himself was
a mere instrument in the hands of God Almighty when he came
to God and said, if you'll let me have old Job for a little
while, he said, I'll make him curse you to your face. Now God
was behind all this in order that he might bring Job into
self-judgment of himself. God was in control. God's hand
is in everything. God is not an idle spectator
observing the scene. helpless, too weak to do anything
about it. But God is behind the scenes
arranging these things to come to pass for His good, wise, and
gracious purpose. God was dealing with Job in order
to instruct old Job. Proud men don't like to be instructed. Proud men can't be taught anything.
Don't tell me what to do. I know what to do. They don't
want to be instructed. He wanted to instruct him, and
he wanted to destroy his pride. Had Job seen this, it would have
saved him from a world of strife and contention, wouldn't it? If Job at the outset had seen
this, but he didn't see this. And so he must be instructed,
he must be reduced, he must be brought to a place where he could
see and feel and understand and know that God was greater than
man and God would have his way. Well, instead of getting angry
with people and things like Job did, He should have judged himself
and should have bowed himself low before God in brokenness
and meekness. It's what he should have done,
but he didn't do it. You remember now that God does
try the righteous. He withdraws not his eyes from
them, but he tries the righteous. And the Bible says in the book
of Hebrews, I believe it is, that he that is without chastisement
is a bastard. All of God's people are chastised,
chastised for their good and for the glory of God. They are
made sometimes to suffer. They're chastised. God trieth
the righteous, all his people he tries in order to instruct
them, in order to bring them down from their high horse of
pride. But yet at the same time, he
says that he withdraweth not his eyes from them. We are in
his hands. and we are under the scope of
his seed. We are under his eye, and we
are the object of his tender and unchanging love at all times,
and yet at the same time we are under his moral government. Now, the whole lesson boils down
to this. To get right thoughts about God
is to get right thoughts about everything else. If I'm wrong
about God, I am wrong about myself. If I'm wrong about my friends,
I'm wrong about everything. So it was with Job. His new thoughts
that have been revealed to him through this young man who comes
onto the scene, his new thoughts were quickly connected to himself. His arguments, his self-defense,
he quickly laid them aside. and shut his mouth. He displaced
them by one short sentence. Here in this chapter where he said, I am fire, 42. Listen to Job's confession here. When he found out who God was,
that God was greater than man, that all these things that happened
to him happened to him for his good and for the glory of God,
and that God was trying the righteous. And Job answered the Lord after
the Lord ask him about a hundred and some questions, Job answered
the Lord and said, he said, I know that thou canst do everything.
Well, a man's acquiring a little understanding when he makes a
statement like that. I know that thou canst do everything. God can do everything. God can
kill. God can make alive. God can lift
up and God can cast down. I know that you can do everything.
God can raise the dead. Only God can raise the dead. Job said, I know that thou canst
do everything and I also know that no thought can be withholden
from thee. To get right with God, is to
know something of the character of God, of who God is, what God
is like. No thought can be withholden
from thee. Who is he that hideth counsel
without knowledge? Job makes his confession here.
He said, I uttered that, I understood not. I didn't know what I was
talking about. things too wonderful for me,
I knew not. Here I beseech thee, and I will
speak, I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. He
said, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. But he
says, Now mine eye seeth thee, and the result of hearing of
thee, who thou art, and the result of my eye seeing you spiritually
in your glory, I have come to this conclusion, that I abhor
myself. That is, I hate myself, and I
repent in dust and ashes. I hate myself. To get right thoughts
about God is to begin to get right thoughts about everything
else. If I'm wrong about God, I'm wrong
about myself. Isn't that so? He didn't understand
the character of God. He didn't understand the object
of God's dealing with him. He did not see that God was trying
him. God was behind the scenes. He
didn't understand that the devil was God's devil, that the devil
was on a leash, and he could only go as far as God had permitted
him to go. He didn't understand that. Ah,
to get right thoughts about God. If I'm wrong about God, I'm wrong
about myself. Job was wrong about God and Job
was wrong about himself. And his new thoughts quickly
connected him to himself. I'm vile. I'm vile. I hate myself. I should have shut up a long time
ago. I hate myself. I repent in dust
and ashes. I'm vile. What's to be done with
this vile self? I'm vile, he said. I conclude
all my arguments here. I'm vile. Well, what's to be
done with vile self? Talk about it, set it up, be
occupied with it, take counsel for it, make provision for it,
No, Job said, Job said, I hate it. I hate myself for the way I've been, the way I've
acted, for my wrong thoughts about who God is, for what God
is worthy of. I hate it. And that's the ground
for every one of us here this morning. It took Job a long time
to reach it. And so do we. It takes us a long
time to reach this spot that old Job finally reached. It took
Job, oh, it took him forty-some chapters. It may take us a lifetime. It may be just hours before our
death before we can come to this ground, to this place, to this
sacred spot where we can say, I've been wrong about everything.
I've been wrong about God, I've been wrong about myself. I hate
my vile self, and I repent and ask forgiveness. Well, it took Job a long time
to reach it, didn't it? Well, it's one thing to say I'm
vile, but it's entirely a different matter to say I'm vile. down deep in my heart I'm vile. I've got a few things that are
wrong with me, I know that. I've got some habits that I don't
like. But we never get down to the
bottom of it and say, in my soul, in the core of my being, in my
heart, I'm vile. In my heart I'm I'm terrible,
unworthy, ungodly and unholy. Listen, these things, these two
things anyhow, must ever go together. My eyes seeeth they, wherefore
I hate myself. They must go together. Now listen
to me, it is as the light of what God is shines in on what
I am, that I hate myself. Let me say it again. It is as
the light of what God is, who God is, what He is, when that
shines in upon what I am, I am vile and I hate myself. Then
my self-hating is a real, true thing. When I see myself in the
light of who God is and I say, I hate myself, then that's the
real thing. It's easy to say, oh yes, I'm
a sinner, I'm not worthy of this or not worthy of that, yet in
my heart say, well, I'm not near as bad as others. It's little use to profess low
thoughts of self while at the same time we are quick, we're
sitting on ready to resent any injury done to us so-called by
a fancied insulting manner. If the least little thing bothers
us, they said this or they said that, and that bothers me. Job got right as to God, and
he got right as to himself, and he soon got right as to his friends. those three friends that dogged
him for forty chapters, dogged him day and night, accused him
of bad behavior, saying, You are an enemy of God. You are
not a friend of God. And when he found out who God
was, he found out who he was, and he said, I hate myself. He
got right with God. He got right with himself. And
he immediately got right for his three friends because he
began to pray for them. You have a hard time of hating
somebody if you're praying for them. It's hard to hate someone
that you pray for, isn't it? Job got right as to his friends
because he learned real quick. He started to pray for them. That's right. How could he pray
for these? He called them physicians of
no value. He called them miserable comforters. But the Lord turned the captivity
of Job when he prayed for his Well, the war is over. Strife
is over. The war of words have ended,
Job said. Now, he said, there's tears of
repentance. There's the sweet odor of the
burnt offering. There is that embrace of love
once more. Now, he had new thoughts concerning
God, new thoughts concerning himself, new thoughts concerning
his friends, and new thoughts concerning his circumstances. All things had become new. And the end of the story is that
all of his friends, all of his brothers and his sisters and
his children that God gave him, sons and his daughters, all of
them It says here in this last chapter, did go to Job's house
and eat bread with him. And Job lived after this 140
years. And Job died full of days, lived
140 years after this happened. Oh, Job. He didn't have much patience,
but God taught him what patience was. He said, I'm vile. Oh, I'm a firm believer when
a man finds out who he is, finds out who God is, then he'll have
some self-knowledge of himself, and there'll be some self-judgment,
and he'll be able to say in his heart, heart of hearts, I am
vile. I am not worthy of the least
of the mercies and the blessings of God. I ought to have been
in hell the second day I was born. The first day that I came
forth from my mother's womb, he ought to have sent me to hell.
I have been unrighteous and unholy and unworthy and ungodly from
the time I was born until the time God has shown me who he
was and who I am. Oh, when a man finds out who
he is, What a sinner he is. What an awful sinner he is. A
sinner by choice, a sinner by nature, and a sinner by practice.
He can't never get away from that Word. He's a sinner. He'll
never get to the place where he's not a sinner. But God saves
sinners. Isn't that wonderful? That's who He came to save. He
didn't come to save righteous people. Anybody here, you're
righteous? God doesn't have nothing to do with you. Righteous in
your own eyes? Righteous in yourself? He comes
to save sinners like old Job. Old Job came to the end of himself
and he said, I am vile. I abhor myself. I repent in dust
and ashes. God have mercy upon my soul.